It came into my mind suddenly how I had burrowed in the straw to hide myself after running from Dame Shand’s. But whether that or the thought of burrowing in the peat-stack came first, I cannot tell. I turned and felt whether I could draw out a peat. With a little loosening I succeeded.
“Father,” I said, “couldn’t we make a hole in the peat-stalk, and build ourselves in?”
“A capital idea, my boy!” he answered, with a gladness in his voice which I venture to attribute in part to his satisfaction at finding that I had some practical sense in me. “We’ll try it at once.”
“I’ve got two or three out already,” I said, for I had gone on pulling, and it was easy enough after one had been started.
“We must take care we don’t bring down the whole stack though,” said my father.
“Even then,” I returned, “we could build ourselves up in them, and that would be something.”
“Right, Ranald! It would be only making houses to our own shape, instead of big enough to move about in—turning crustaceous animals, you know.”
“It would be a peat-greatcoat at least,” I remarked, pulling away.
“Here,” he said, “I will put my stick in under the top row. That will be a sort of lintel to support those above.”
He always carried his walking-stick whether he rode or walked.
We worked with a will, piling up the peats a little in front that we might with them build up the door of our cave after we were inside. We got quite merry over it.
“We shall be brought before the magistrates for destruction of property,” said my father.
“You’ll have to send Andrew to build up the stack again—that’s all.”
“But I wonder how it is that nobody hears us. How can they have a peat-stack so far from the house?”
“I can’t imagine,” I said; “except it be to prevent them from burning too many peats. It is more like a trick of the poor laird than anybody else.”
Every now and then a few would come down with a rush, and before long we had made a large hole. We left a good thick floor to sit upon.
Creeping in, we commenced building up the entrance. We had not proceeded far, however, before we found that our cave was too small, and that as we should have to remain in it for hours, we must find it very cramped. Therefore, instead of using any more of the peats already pulled out, we finished building up the wall with others fresh drawn from the inside. When at length we had, to the best of our ability, completed our immuring, we sat down to wait for the morning—my father as calm as if he had been seated in his study-chair, and I in a state of condensed delight; for was not this a grand adventure—with my father to share it, and keep it from going too far? He sat with his back leaning against the side of the hole, and I sat between his knees, and leaned against him. His arms were folded round me; and could ever boy be more blessed than I was then? The sense of outside danger; the knowledge that if the wind rose, we might be walled up in snow before the morning; the assurance of present safety and good hope—all made such an impression upon my mind that ever since when any trouble has threatened me, I have invariably turned first in thought to the memory of that harbour of refuge from the storm. There I sat for long hours secure in my father’s arms, and knew that the soundless snow was falling thick around us, and marked occasionally the threatening wail of the wind like the cry of a wild beast scenting us from afar.
“This is grand, father,” I said.
“You would like better to be at home in bed, wouldn’t you?” he asked, trying me.
“No, indeed, I should not,” I answered, with more than honesty; for I felt exuberantly happy.
“If only we can keep warm,” said my father. “If you should get very cold indeed, you must not lose heart, my man, but think how pleasant it will be when we get home to a good fire and a hot breakfast.”
“I think I can bear it all right. I have often been cold enough at school.”
“This may be worse. But we need not anticipate evil: that is to send out for the suffering. It is well to be prepared for it, but it is ill to brood over a fancied future of evil. In all my life, my boy—and I should like you to remember what I say—I have never found any trial go beyond what I could bear. In the worst cases of suffering, I think there is help given which those who look on cannot understand, but which enables the sufferer to endure. The last help of that kind is death, which I think is always a blessing, though few people can regard it as such.”
I listened with some wonder. Without being able to see that what he said was true, I could yet accept it after a vague fashion.
“This nest which we have made to shelter us,” he resumed, “brings to my mind what the Psalmist says about dwelling in the secret place of the Most High. Everyone who will, may there, like the swallow, make himself a nest.”
“This can’t be very like that, though, surely, father,” I ventured to object.
“Why not, my boy?”
“It’s not safe enough, for one thing.”
“You are right there. Still it is like. It is our place of refuge.”
“The cold does get through it, father.”
“But it keeps our minds at peace. Even the refuge in God does not always secure us from external suffering. The heart may be quite happy and strong when the hands are benumbed with cold. Yes, the heart even may grow cold with coming death, while the man himself retreats the farther into the secret place of the Most High, growing more calm and hopeful as the last cold invades the house of his body. I believe that all troubles come to drive us into that refuge—that secret place where alone we can be safe. You will, when you go out into the world, my boy, find that most men not only do not believe this, but do not believe that you believe it. They regard it at best as a fantastic weakness, fit only for sickly people. But watch how the strength of such people, their calmness and common sense, fares when the grasp of suffering lays hold upon them. It was a sad sight—that abject hopeless misery I saw this afternoon. If his mind had been an indication of the reality, one must have said that there was no God—no God at least that would have anything to do with him. The universe as reflected in the tarnished mirror of his soul, was a chill misty void, through which blew the moaning wind of an unknown fate. As near as ever I saw it, that man was without God and without hope in the world. All who have done the mightiest things—I do not mean the showiest things—all that are like William of Orange—the great William, I mean, not our King William—or John Milton, or William Penn, or any other of the cloud of witnesses spoken of in the Epistle to the Hebrews—all the men I say who have done the mightiest things, have not only believed that there was this refuge in God, but have themselves more or less entered into the secret place of the Most High. There only could they have found strength to do their mighty deeds. They were able to do them because they knew God wanted them to do them, that he was on their side, or rather they were on his side, and therefore safe, surrounded by God on every side. My boy, do the will of God—that is, what you know or believe to be right, and fear nothing.”
I never forgot the lesson. But my readers must not think that my father often talked like this. He was not at all favourable to much talk about religion. He used to say that much talk prevented much thought, and talk without thought was bad. Therefore it was for the most part only upon extraordinary occasions, of which this is an example, that he spoke of the deep simplicities of that faith in God which was the very root of his conscious life.
He was silent after this utterance, which lasted longer than I have represented, although unbroken, I believe, by any remark of mine. Full of inward repose, I fell asleep in his arms.
When I awoke I found myself very cold. Then I became aware that my father was asleep, and for the first time began to be uneasy. It was not because of the cold: that was not at all unendurable; it was that while the night lay awful in white silence about me, while the wind was moaning outside, and blowing long thin currents through the peat walls around me, while our warm home lay far away, and I could not tell how many hours of cold darkness had yet to pass before we could set out to find it,—it was not all these things together, but that, in the midst of all these, I was awake and my father slept. I could easily have waked him, but I was not selfish enough for that: I sat still and shivered and felt very dreary. Then the last words of my father began to return upon me, and, with a throb of relief, the thought awoke in my mind that although my father was asleep, the great Father of us both, he in whose heart lay that secret place of refuge, neither slumbered nor slept. And now I was able to wait in patience, with an idea, if not a sense of the present care of God, such as I had never had before. When, after some years, my father was taken from us, the thought of this night came again and again, and I would say in my heart: “My father sleeps that I may know the better that The Father wakes.”
At length he stirred. The first sign of his awaking was, that he closed again the arms about me which had dropped by his sides as he slept.
“I’m so glad you’re awake, father,” I said, speaking first.
“Have you been long awake then?”
“Not so very long, but I felt lonely without you.”
“Are you very cold? I feel rather chilly.”
So we chatted away for a while.
“I wonder if it is nearly day yet. I do not in the least know how long we have slept. I wonder if my watch is going. I forgot to wind it up last night. If it has stopped I shall know it is near daylight.”
He held his watch to his ear: alas! it was ticking vigorously. He felt for the keyhole, and wound it up. After that we employed ourselves in repeating as many of the metrical psalms and paraphrases of Scripture as we could recollect, and this helped away a good part of the weary time.
But it went very slowly, and I was growing so cold that I could hardly bear it.
“I’m afraid you feel very cold, Ranald,” said my father, folding me closer in his arms. “You must try not to go to sleep again, for that would be dangerous now. I feel more cramped than cold.”
As he said this, he extended his legs and threw his head back, to get rid of the uneasiness by stretching himself. The same moment, down came a shower of peats upon our heads and bodies, and when I tried to move, I found myself fixed. I could not help laughing.
“Father,” I cried, as soon as I could speak, “you’re like Samson: you’ve brought down the house upon us.”
“So I have, my boy. It was very thoughtless of me. I don’t know what we are to do now.”
“Can you move, father? I can’t,” I said.
“I can move my legs, but I’m afraid to move even a toe in my boot for fear of bringing down another avalanche of peats. But no—there’s not much danger of that: they are all down already, for I feel the snow on my face.”
With hands and feet my father struggled, but could not do much, for I lay against him under a great heap. His struggles made an opening sideways however.
“Father! father! shout,” I cried. “I see a light somewhere; and I think it is moving.”
We shouted as loud as we could, and then lay listening. My heart beat so that I was afraid I should not hear any reply that might come. But the next moment it rang through the frosty air.
“It’s Turkey! That’s Turkey, father!” I cried. “I know his shout. He makes it go farther than anybody else.—Turkey! Turkey!” I shrieked, almost weeping with delight.
Again Turkey’s cry rang through the darkness, and the light drew wavering nearer.
“Mind how you step, Turkey,” cried my father. “There’s a hole you may tumble into.”
“It wouldn’t hurt him much in the snow,” I said.
“Perhaps not, but he would probably lose his light, and that we can hardly afford.”
“Shout again,” cried Turkey. “I can’t make out where you are.”
My father shouted.
“Am I coming nearer to you now?”
“I can hardly say. I cannot see well. Are you going along the road?”
“Yes. Can’t you come to me?”
“Not yet. We can’t get out. We’re upon your right hand, in a peat-stack.”
“Oh! I know the peat-stack. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
He did not however find it so easily as he had expected, the peats being covered with snow. My father gave up trying to free himself and took to laughing instead at the ridiculous situation in which we were about to be discovered. He kept directing Turkey, however, who at length after some disappearances which made us very anxious about the lantern, caught sight of the stack, and walked straight towards it. Now first we saw that he was not alone, but accompanied by the silent Andrew.
“Where are you, sir?” asked Turkey, throwing the light of the lantern over the ruin.
“Buried in the peats,” answered my father, laughing. “Come and get us out.”
Turkey strode up to the heap, and turning the light down into it said,
“I didn’t know it had been raining peats, sir.”
“The peats didn’t fall quite so far as the snow, Turkey, or they would have made a worse job of it,” answered my father.
Meantime Andrew and Turkey were both busy; and in a few moments we stood upon our feet, stiff with cold and cramped with confinement, but merry enough at heart.
“What brought you out to look for us?” asked my father.
“I heard Missy whinnying at the stable-door,” said Andrew. “When I saw she was alone, I knew something had happened, and waked Turkey. We only stopped to run to the manse for a drop of whisky to bring with us, and set out at once.”
“What o’clock is it now?” asked my father.
“About one o’clock,” answered Andrew.
“One o’clock!” thought I. “What a time we should have had to wait!”
“Have you been long in finding us?”
“Only about an hour.”
“Then the little mare must have had great trouble in getting home. You say the other was not with her?”
“No, sir. She’s not made her appearance.”
“Then if we don’t find her, she will be dead before morning. But what shall we do with you, Ranald? Turkey had better go home with you first.”
“Please let me go too,” I said.
“Are you able to walk?”
“Quite—or at least I shall be, after my legs come to themselves a bit.”
Turkey produced a bottle of milk which he had brought for me, and Andrew produced the little flask of whisky which Kirsty had sent; and my father having taken a little of the latter, while I emptied my bottle, we set out to look for young Missy.
“Where are we?” asked my father.
Turkey told him.
“How comes it that nobody heard our shouting, then?”
“You know, sir,” answered Turkey, “the old man is as deaf as a post, and I dare say his people were all fast asleep.”
The snow was falling only in a few large flakes now, which sank through the air like the moultings of some lovely bird of heaven. The moon had come out again, and the white world lay around us in lovely light. A good deal of snow had fallen while we lay in the peats, but we could yet trace the track of the two horses. We followed it a long way through the little valley into which we had dropped from the side of the road. We came to more places than one where they had been floundering together in a snow-wreath, but at length reached the spot where one had parted from the other. When we had traced one of the tracks to the road, we concluded it was Missy’s, and returned to the other. But we had not followed it very far before we came upon the poor mare lying upon her back in a deep runnel, in which the snow was very soft. She had put her forefeet in it as she galloped heedlessly along, and tumbled right over. The snow had yielded enough to let the banks get a hold of her, and she lay helpless. Turkey and Andrew, however, had had the foresight to bring spades with them and a rope, and they set to work at once, my father taking a turn now and then, and I holding the lantern, which was all but useless now in the moonlight. It took more than an hour to get the poor thing on her legs again, but when she was up, it was all they could do to hold her. She was so wild with cold, and with delight at feeling her legs under her once more, that she would have broken loose again, and galloped off as recklessly as ever. They set me on her back, and with my father on one side and Turkey on the other, and Andrew at her head, I rode home in great comfort. It was another good hour before we arrived, and right glad were we to see through the curtains of the parlour the glow of the great fire which Kirsty had kept up for us. She burst out crying when we made our appearance.
CHAPTER XXXIII
A Solitary Chapter
During all that winter I attended the evening school and assisted the master. I confess, however, it was not by any means so much for the master as to be near Elsie Duff, of whom I now thought many times an hour. Her sweet face grew more and more dear to me. When I pointed out an error in her work, or suggested a better mode of working, it would flush like the heart of a white rose, and eagerly she would set herself to rectification or improvement, her whole manner a dumb apology for what could be a fault in no eyes but her own. It was this sweetness that gained upon me: at length her face was almost a part of my consciousness. I suppose my condition was what people would call being in love with her; but I never thought of that; I only thought of her. Nor did I ever dream of saying a word to her on the subject. I wished nothing other than as it was. To think about her all day, so gently that it never disturbed Euclid or Livy; to see her at night, and get near her now and then, sitting on the same form with her as I explained something to her on the slate or in her book; to hear her voice, and look into her tender eyes, was all that I desired. It never occurred to me that things could not go on so; that a change must come; that as life cannot linger in the bud, but is compelled by the sunshine and air into the flower, so life would go on and on, and things would change, and the time blossom into something else, and my love find itself set out-of-doors in the midst of strange plants and a new order of things.
When school was over, I walked home with her—not alone, for Turkey was always on the other side. I had not a suspicion that Turkey’s admiration of Elsie could ever come into collision with mine. We joined in praising her, but my admiration ever found more words than Turkey’s, and I thought my love to her was greater than his.
We seldom went into her grandmother’s cottage, for she did not make us welcome. After we had taken her home we generally repaired to Turkey’s mother, with whom we were sure of a kind reception. She was a patient diligent woman, who looked as if she had nearly done with life, and had only to gather up the crumbs of it. I have often wondered since, what was her deepest thought—whether she was content to be unhappy, or whether she lived in hope of some blessedness beyond. It is marvellous with how little happiness some people can get through the world. Surely they are inwardly sustained with something even better than joy.
“Did you ever hear my mother sing?” asked Turkey, as we sat together over her little fire, on one of these occasions.
“No. I should like very much,” I answered.
The room was lighted only by a little oil-lamp, for there was no flame to the fire of peats and dried oak-bark.
“She sings such queer ballads as you never heard,” said Turkey. “Give us one, mother; do.”
She yielded, and, in a low chanting voice, sang something like this:—
I have modernized the ballad—indeed spoiled it altogether, for I have made up this version from the memory of it—with only, I fear, just a touch here and there of the original expression.
“That’s what comes of taking what you have no right to,” said Turkey, in whom the practical had ever the upper hand of the imaginative.
As we walked home together I resumed the subject.
“I think you’re too hard on the king’s son,” I said. “He couldn’t help falling in love with the mermaid.”
“He had no business to steal her comb, and then run away with herself,” said Turkey.
“She was none the worse for it,” said I.
“Who told you that?” he retorted. “I don’t think the girl herself would have said so. It’s not every girl that would care to marry a king’s son. She might have had a lover of her own down in the sea. At all events the prince was none the better for it.”
“But the song says she made a tender wife,” I objected.
“She couldn’t help herself. She made the best of it. I dare say he wasn’t a bad sort of a fellow, but he was no gentleman.”
“Turkey!” I exclaimed. “He was a prince!”
“I know that.”
“Then he must have been a gentleman.”
“I don’t know that. I’ve read of a good many princes who did things I should be ashamed to do.”
“But you’re not a prince, Turkey,” I returned, in the low endeavour to bolster up the wrong with my silly logic.
“No. Therefore if I were to do what was rude and dishonest, people would say: ‘What could you expect of a ploughboy?’ A prince ought to be just so much better bred than a ploughboy. I would scorn to do what that prince did. What’s wrong in a ploughboy can’t be right in a prince, Ranald. Or else right is only right sometimes; so that right may be wrong and wrong may be right, which is as much as to say there is no right and wrong; and if there’s no right and wrong, the world’s an awful mess, and there can’t be any God, for a God would never have made it like that.”
“Well, Turkey, you know best. I can’t help thinking the prince was not so much to blame, though.”
“You see what came of it—misery.”
“Perhaps he would rather have had the misery and all together than none of it.”
“That’s for him to settle. But he must have seen he was wrong, before he had done wandering by the sea like that.”
“Well now, Turkey, what would you have done yourself, suppose the beautifulest of them all had laid her comb down within an inch of where you were standing—and never saw you, you know?”
Turkey thought for a moment before answering.
“I’m supposing you fell in love with her at first sight, you know,” I added.
“Well, I’m sure I should not have kept the comb, even if I had taken it just to get a chance of speaking to her. And I can’t help fancying if he had behaved like a gentleman, and let her go without touching her the first time, she might have come again; and if he had married her at last of her own free will, she would not have run away from him, let the sea have kept calling her ever so much.”
The next evening, I looked for Elsie as usual, but did not see her. How blank and dull the schoolroom seemed! Still she might arrive any moment. But she did not come. I went through my duties wearily, hoping ever for the hour of release. I could see well enough that Turkey was anxious too. The moment school was over, we hurried away, almost without a word, to the cottage. There we found her weeping. Her grandmother had died suddenly. She clung to Turkey, and seemed almost to forget my presence. But I thought nothing of that. Had the case been mine, I too should have clung to Turkey from faith in his help and superior wisdom.
There were two or three old women in the place. Turkey went and spoke to them, and then took Elsie home to his mother. Jamie was asleep, and they would not wake him.
How it was arranged, I forget, but both Elsie and Jamie lived for the rest of the winter with Turkey’s mother. The cottage was let, and the cow taken home by their father. Before summer Jamie had got a place in a shop in the village, and then Elsie went back to her mother.